“You’re able to find points of deep connection even with people you disdain.”

It’s one of the lessons I learned long ago, reporting in the post-Communist environment in Russia and Eastern Europe. I became a really strong anti-Communist at that point, just seeing what that world was and had done. But, after a while, you get into these stories and you realize people whom you see as totally different have all these other characteristics, and you’re able to find points of deep connection even with people you disdain.

I just finished Submergence, which was quite good, if not quite perfect. Definitely recommended if you like Coetzee and Sebald (which I do, a lot). Sometimes his writing can be a bit overly “cosmic” (such a good word used, there, in that piece) but other times it is breathtaking.